drmichaelroth@juno.com
214-707-3878
|
|
|
Hello again everyone!
As promised, here is the first part of a two-part article on water. The material was too lengthy for one newsletter so I'm going to share the first part today and the second part within a week or two.
|
|
|
Water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to drink!
Finding good, clean, "healthy" water has certainly become more difficult in the last half century or so due to increases in pollution, acid rain, chemical runoff from farms, lawns, gardens, factories, and nuclear fallout. Considering the escalating population and subsequent pollution, how can one find good clean water anymore? What kind of water is the best?
The options are abundant: pure filtered water, spring water, raw water, glacier water, well water, ozonated, demineralized, reverse osmosis, distilled, or alkaline, ionized water (also called: microwater, micro-clustered water, hexagonal water, structured water, reduced water, electrolysis reduced water, ionic mineral water, light water, living water, anti-aging water, oxygenated water, energized water and my favorite, miracle water)!
Talk about confusing! This may be one of the most difficult and research/time-intensive newsletters I've written. Since the amount of varying data and opinion is so voluminous, this report cannot be comprehensive. But I've done my best to write this in an objective, concise and understandable way while summarizing and separating some of the fact from fiction based on research, and my knowledge of human anatomy and physiology.
My research began with a document from the World Health Organization (WHO) that specifies the health risks from drinking De-mineralized water. It's important to realize that neither groundwater nor surface water has ever been chemically pure since nearly all natural water contains small amounts of gases, minerals and organic matter. The only exceptions may be rainwater and/or naturally formed ice in limited areas. No one has really considered the health effects of demineralized (pure) water since it's rarely found in nature. For our purposes, demineralized water is defined as water that is nearly or completely free of dissolved minerals resulting from distillation, deionization, membrane filtration (reverse osmosis or nanofiltration), electrodialysis or other technology.
____________________________________________________
|
|
|
Demineralized water is considered somewhat unstable and can be corrosive to metals. But there are also other aspects that may affect health. A 1970's WHO study final report concluded that "not only does completely demineralized water (distillate) have unsatisfactory taste, color, and odor, but it also has a definite adverse influence on the animal and human organism." This adverse influence on health from long-term use is of particular interest where certain types of home water treatment systems are widely used or where some types of bottled waters are consumed since they may not be receiving the additional minerals that would be present in unaltered higher mineralized waters.
Specifically, it has been found that low mineral content water has progressively negative effects on the body affecting the digestive system, metabolism, blood, mineral homeostasis and hormones. Additionally, since the 1960's, worldwide studies have associated soft water (water low in calcium and magnesium) with increased cardiovascular and motor neuronal disease, increased fractures, pregnancy disorders, goiter, hypertension, organ system imbalance and even cancer.
Cooking with soft water was also found to cause substantial losses of all essential elements from food as opposed to cooking with hard water. Therefore, it may not be fully appropriate for drinking or cooking on a long-term basis.
When distilled water is consumed, the intestine has to add electrolytes to this water first, taking them from the body reserves. It also leads to the diluting of electrolytes dissolved in the body water which may compromise the function of vital organs causing fatigue, weakness, headache, muscle cramps and impaired heart rate.
Ideally, water should contain a beneficial range of dissolved salts, bicarbonate ions, magnesium and calcium and although this is not the major source of these minerals, they may help to make up the difference in mineral-deficient diets. Drinking water should contain a minimum of 10 mg/l magnesium (20-30 mg/l optimum), and 20 mg/l calcium, with the optimum being (40-80) mg/l. At these concentrations, minimal or no adverse health effects were observed. Additionally, both calcium and magnesium have a limited but beneficial effect in helping to prevent the absorption of some toxic elements such as lead and cadmium from the intestine into the blood.
|
|
There are quite a few companies promoting other types of drinking water and their various resources or methods of attaining the best. For example, some advertise the use of electrolysis for ionizing/alkalizing or ozonating water for purity and health. Health claims range from helping with obesity, hypertension, diabetes and heart disease, to curing cancer.
In truth, water ionization is nothing new. Most water is naturally ionized; it contains dissolved ions (electrically-charged atoms or molecules), and almost all waters found in nature acquire ions such as calcium and bicarbonate as they come into contact with rocks and sediments. Even the purest rainwater contains some hydrogen and bicarbonate ions that are formed when it picks up carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The amount of particular elements in our water determines whether it is acid or alkaline.
Fortunately, our body was marvelously created to maintain a fluctuating balance and is able to do this with a great deal of accuracy regardless of what we consume. Therefore, the acidity or alkalinity (pH) of the water itself may be irrelevant. Alkaline water is quickly made acidic by the lower pH of the gastric acid (~2) and acidic water is quickly made alkaline in the small intestine from pancreatic buffers. Even though different parts of the body (even individual cells) can have different pH values, water pH has little to no effect on the blood or body's cells.
Water ionizers claim to "charge" the water and separate it to remove contaminants and create a higher body pH (alkalinity). But to actually electronically ionize water would be fairly difficult since pure water contains no dissolved solids (sodium, calcium or magnesium) to conduct a current. Thus pure water cannot be made alkaline or acidic through electrolysis. In addition, since pure water has a neutral pH of exactly 7, the claim that alkaline water is completely clean is erroneous since waters whose pH differs from 7 are never "pure" in the chemical sense. The ideal drinking water pH range is between 6 - 8.5. Anything above that is very unusual.
Additional claims that "ionized"/alkaline water is an anti-oxidant and affects the blood plasma pH are unlikely. It is actually an oxidizing agent, as can be seen by its ability to decolorize iodine hypochlorites (present in most such waters). Blood plasma can change from it's normal pH of 7.4 (acidosis or alkalosis), but this is generally caused by metabolic disturbances, such as diabetes or kidney failure and by temporary methods such as fasting, hyperventiliation, diarrhea and vomiting.
Urine is the only body fluid that can have its acidity changed by food or supplements such as by eating alkaline-ash foods (fresh fruit, raw vegetables for example) and acid-ash foods (animal products, whole grains, beans and other seeds). This generally does not affect the rest of the body.
To Be Continued...
I'm sorry to end it here, but I've got quite a bit of material left that I will share with you in the next couple of weeks. We'll pick up where we left off and conclude in the next newsletter.
Thank you again.
May the Lord bless and keep you.
Yours in Good Health,
Dr. Mike
drmichaelroth@juno.com
214-707-3878
www.SomaHealth.Net
|
|
|
